1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments described herein generally relate to a system and method for generating dynamic software documentation.
2. Background Art
Software providers generally provide software documentation (or software help documentation) in one of two approaches. In a first approach, the software documentation is a set of static documents shipped together with the software product itself. In the first approach, the static documents are difficult to or cannot be updated once the software is shipped. Software vendors may update the static documents through special patches by the software provider. However, such a practice may not be employed by all software providers. Problems generally associated with static documents in the event these documents are not capable of being updated is that the documentation may be out-dated over time as the software changes or evolves in the future. Further, the documentation is not capable of being corrected in the event such documentation includes incorrect information.
In a second approach, the software documentation may be provided on the software provider's website. Problems generally associated with the second approach appear because the documentation is disconnected from the software itself. Such a condition causes the user to spend additional time searching for the documentation. In addition, the documentation provided on the software provider's website may be outdated. A number of software providers may have limited resources and may not be able to devote resources in keeping the documentation current (or updated) in view of evolving software versions or enhancements. Further, software providers provide the software documentation only in English in most cases.
In general, both approaches rely on technical writers that produce the content of the documentation and can modify content in the documentation in response to requests/issued identified by the users. Often times, synchronization between the software documentation and the software product itself may require for a significant amount of coordination between the developers of the software and the technical writers. Coordination issues between the software developers and the technical writers may increase resulting software costs and jeopardize the integrity of the help information contained in the documentation.